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Mock-heroic,mock-epic orheroi-comic works are typicallysatires orparodies that mock the elevated style of common Classical stereotypes ofheroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic qualities in relation to a trivial subject.
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Historically, the mock-heroic style was popular in 17th-century Italy, and in the post-Restoration andAugustan periods in Great Britain.
The earliest example of the form is theBatrachomyomachia ascribed toHomer by the Romans and parodying his work, but believed by most modern scholars to be the work of an anonymous poet in the time of Alexander the Great.
Among the new genres, closer to the modern feelings and proposing new ideals, the satirical literature was particularly effective in criticizing the old habits and values. Beside the Spanishpicaresque novels and the Frenchburlesque novel, in Italy flourished thepoema eroicomico. In this country those who still wrote epic poems, following the rules set byTorquato Tasso in his workDiscorsi del poema eroico (Discussions about the Epic Poems) and realized in his masterwork, theJerusalem Delivered, were felt as antiquated. The new mock-heroic poem accepted the same metre, vocabulary, rhetoric of the epics. However, the new genre turned the old epic upside down about the meaning, setting the stories in more familiar situations, to ridiculize the traditional epics. In this context was created the parody of epic genre.
Lo scherno degli dèi (The Mockery of Gods) byFrancesco Bracciolini, printed in 1618 is often regarded as the first Italianpoema eroicomico.
However, the best known of the form isLa secchia rapita (The Stolen Bucket) byAlessandro Tassoni (1622).
Other Italian mock-heroic poems wereLa Gigantea byGirolamo Amelonghi [it] (1566),La moscheide byGiovanni Battista Lalli (1624), theViaggio di Colonia (Travel to Cologne) byAntonio Abbondanti (1625),L'asino (The donkey) byCarlo de' Dottori (1652),La Troja rapita byLoreto Vittori (1662),Il Malmantile racquistato byLorenzo Lippi (1688),La presa di San Miniato by Ippolito Neri (1764).
Also in Italian dialects were written mock-heroic poems. For example, inNeapolitan dialect the best known work of the form wasLa Vaiasseide byGiulio Cesare Cortese (1612). While inRomanesco Giovanni Camillo Peresio wroteIl maggio romanesco (1688), Giuseppe Berneri publishedMeo Patacca in 1695, and, finally, Benedetto Micheli printedLa libbertà romana acquistata e defesa in 1765.
After the translation ofDon Quixote, byMiguel de Cervantes, English authors began to imitate the inflated language ofRomance poetry and narrative to describe misguided or common characters. The most likely genesis for the mock-heroic, as distinct from thepicaresque,burlesque, andsatirical poem is the comic poemHudibras (1662–1674), bySamuel Butler. Butler's poem describes a "trew blew" Puritan knight during theInterregnum, in language that imitates Romance andepic poetry. After Butler, there was an explosion of poetry that described a despised subject in the elevated language of heroic poetry and plays.Hudibras gave rise to a particular verse form, commonly called the "Hudibrastic".
Poet LaureateJohn Dryden is responsible for some of the dominance among satirical genres of the mock-heroic in the later Restoration era. While Dryden's own plays would themselves furnish later mock-heroics (specifically,The Conquest of Granada is satirized in the mock-heroicThe Author's Farce andTom Thumb byHenry Fielding, as well asThe Rehearsal), Dryden'sMac Flecknoe is perhaps thelocus classicus of the mock-heroic form as it would be practiced for a century to come. In that poem, Dryden indirectly comparesThomas Shadwell withAeneas by using the language ofAeneid to describe the coronation of Shadwell on the throne of Dullness formerly held by King Flecknoe. Theparody of Virgil satirizes Shadwell. Dryden's prosody is identical to regularheroic verse: iambic pentameter closed couplets. The parody is not formal, but merely contextual and ironic. (For an excellent overview of the history of the mock-heroic in the 17th and 18th centuries see "the English Mock-Heroic poem of the 18th Century" by Grazyna Bystydzienska, published by Polish Scientific Publishers, 1982.)
After Dryden, the form continued to flourish, and there are countless minor mock-heroic poems from 1680 to 1780. Additionally, there were a few attempts at a mock-heroic novel. The most significant later mock-heroic poems were byAlexander Pope. Pope'sThe Rape of the Lock is a noted example of the Mock-Heroic style; indeed, Pope never deviates from mimickingepic poetry such asHomer'sIliad andVirgil'sAeneid. The overall form of the poem, written incantos, follows the tradition of epics, along with the precursory “Invocation of theMuse”; in this case, Pope'sMuse is literally the person who prodded him to write the poem,John Caryll: “this verse to Caryll, Muse, is due!” (line 3). Epics always include foreshadowing which is usually given by an otherworldly figure[citation needed], and Pope mocks tradition through Ariel the sprite, who sees some “dread event” (line 109) impending on Belinda. These epic introductory tendencies give way to the main portion of the story, usually involving a battle of some kind (such as in theIliad) that follows this pattern: dressing for battle (description of Achilles shield, preparation for battle), altar sacrifice/libation to the gods, some battle change (perhaps involving drugs), treachery (Achilles ankle is told to be his weak spot), a journey to the Underworld, and the final battle. All of these elements are followed eloquently by Pope in that specific order: Belinda readies herself for the card game (which includes a description of her hair and beauty), the Baron makes a sacrifice for her hair (the altar built for love and the deal with Clarissa), the “mock” battle of cards changes in the Baron’s favor, Clarissa’s treachery to her supposed friend Belinda by slipping the Baron scissors, and finally the treatment of the card game as a battle and the Baron’s victory. Pope’s mastery of the Mock-Heroic is clear in every instance. Even the typicalapotheosis found in the epics is mimicked inThe Rape of the Lock, as “the stars inscribe Belinda’s name!” (line 150). He invokes the same Mock-heroic style inThe Dunciad which also employs the language of heroic poetry to describe menial or trivial subjects. In this mock-epic the progress ofDulness over the face of the earth, the coming of stupidity and tastelessness, is treated in the same way as the coming of civilization is in theAeneid (see also the metaphor oftranslatio studii).John Gay'sTrivia andBeggar's Opera were mock-heroic (the latter inopera), andSamuel Johnson'sLondon is a mock-heroic of a sort.
